


Is this True or Gone?

by Falln_Grce



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Betrayal, Clever Q, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Q, Isolation, James Bond Being an Asshole, James Bond Has Issues, James Bond Takes Care of Q, M/M, Protective James Bond, Q Whump, Q has a plan, Q is not a Damsel in Distress, Q leaves MI6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22519213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Falln_Grce/pseuds/Falln_Grce
Summary: In the month following M’s death at Skyfall, things inside MI6’s Q branch never seemed to get back on the right track.For the last two weeks, missions had started to show cracks. Nothing major at first, but little things all the same. All involved in Q branch’s intel. Or bugs in the tech that got sent out with the agents.The problem with that was, all of those individual incidents led back to one man... Q.
Relationships: James Bond/Q
Comments: 100
Kudos: 539





	1. Chapter 1

In the month following M’s death at Skyfall, things inside MI6’s Q-Branch never seemed to get back on the right track. 

For the last two weeks, missions had started to show cracks. Nothing major at first, but little things. All involved in Q branch’s intel. Or bugs in the tech that got sent out with the agents. 

A door that was supposed to be unlocked suddenly wasn’t. Or one that the agent needed to be secure was suddenly open to the people trying to kill her. 002. She barely made it out alive on that one. 

Or there was the time when Q had forwarded the backup request to the satellite station, only for the system to show no record of any request being sent. 

By the time Mallory ordered an audit, there had been no less than eight missions that appeared to be plagued by mistakes. Incompetence was another word to describe it. In fact, that  _ was _ the word used in the official report. 

A report that Q wasn’t supposed to know about. 

The thing was, he knew he’d sent that back up request. He had a clear memory of doing so, just like he had a clear memory of each and every ‘glitch’ in the official transcripts. Some of them could have been done remotely, but the actual tech would have had to be tampered with by hand. 

Q didn’t make mistakes. Not after Silva. He double, sometimes triple checked his work. It was solid. Which meant there was someone in Q branch working against them. It was the only possibility that made sense. 

Mallory felt the same way. 

That being said, Mallory’s agreement on the matter provided Q with very little comfort at that specific moment in time. Considering he was being escorted away from his work station by two unknown agents and taken to an interrogation room. 

Apparently, Mallory believed the Q branch employee who was out to get them was Q himself. 

They sent in Eve. Q wouldn’t call her a friend, not exactly. But she was the closest he’d probably come to it in a long time. 

Q laid out the instances he could think of, insisting he had nothing to do with the sabotage, while at the same time, he was very determined she know that he believed it to be sabotage. 

“Eve, I didn’t do this. You have to know that,” he pleaded after the first twenty-four hours. 

She looked a touch sympathetic, but mostly closed off. And he could tell nothing he said was really getting through. 

“We don’t even know what  _ this _ is Q. Why don’t you tell us. Because from what we can see, the only time a mission had problems was when you were in play. We cross-referenced the logins. You were the only one on all of them.” 

Q wasn’t even annoyed at how stupid it all was. They’d detained him sure, and they were wasting time with this nonsense. But he was still worried that the actual culprit might get away. “Eve, please. Anyone working in Q-Branch right now could alter those call sheets. That doesn’t prove what you think it does. But you need to keep looking. Because someone  _ is _ doing this.”

They would detain him for another two weeks of questioning while a more thorough review could be done. His only request in that time was, “Could someone go check on the cats?” 

Eve agreed. He knew it was the best he was going to get from her. She had a coolness about her approach that never wavered in her belief that he was behind it. 

In a moment of complete objectivity, Q supposed that it was her distinct lack of a poker face that made her so unsuited to field work, more so than the whole shooting a 00 off a train. If he was the guy, certainly a friendly approach would work better than some fragile ‘tough guy’ facade. 

This was why Q didn’t cultivate personal relationships; they all went sour in the end. But up until that moment, he’d thought his exceptional capabilities for getting the job done would be enough. 

They held him for longer than two weeks. 

Six weeks, to be exact, though much of that was spent recovering from the ‘questioning’ they’d put him through. When they released him, it was only because there was no direct evidence tying Q, or Dominic as he was called now, to the problems they’d seen on the missions. 

On the other hand, the fact that the missions since his de facto incarceration had all been successful was rather damning on its own. 

Dominic Porter was released back to his flat, fully civilian once again, with no employment ties to Her Majesty’s Secret Intelligence Service to speak for. 

He would be watched, they’d told him so. He was on probation of sorts, with regular check ins extending out to the foreseeable future. He wasn’t to touch a laptop beyond unintelligent google searches. He wasn’t to make or accept contact from anyone MI6 considered off-limits. Which was basically anyone who worked there, or had worked there, or anyone they were monitoring. 

Given that he had no means of income any longer, Dominic considered that to be the first order of business. Well that, and recovering from the not so polite interrogation he’d received. They’d patched him up, kept him for a few more weeks than he’d been led to believe it would be, and dumped him out when he could manage a decent walk and the bruises had faded somewhat. 

One of the medical staff had given him a knee brace and crutches on his way out. He was somewhat thankful they’d gone to the trouble.

He wasn’t going to wallow in the complete 180 that his path had taken, though. He had a new job as an auto mechanic within a month. His flat was put up for sale, and his belongings transported to a smaller place shortly after. Something more within his new pay scale. 

The only good thing about his new place was the fact that it was a detached residence. He didn’t have neighbors, but he also didn’t really have much space either. 

There was a tiny closet of a bathroom with only a toilet, tiny sink, and a shower off the bedroom. The only reason it was listed as a studio had been the fact that the doorway between the bedroom and the only other room in the place wasn’t actually a doorway. It was just an arched opening in the wall. 

The living room doubled as the kitchen, with a three feet strip of linoleum flooring running the length of the wall just after coming in the front door. 

But there was enough space for his bed and dresser in one room, and his couch and television in the other. And a small space left over for a desk if he wanted, but he left that open. There was no use setting up a computer station when he wasn’t supposed to do that anymore. 

He kept his piano, and two bookshelves. Another shelving unit, dresser, and bed for the other room. He kept most of his clothes. But the rest he sold. All of the cat supplies went into the bin. He didn’t know what Eve’d done with them, but they were gone by the time they’d released him. 

He didn’t make any major purchases for the new place. Not for a single moment did he think they wouldn’t send someone in to the place to check up on him. It was extremely important that whoever they sent would find no reason to suspect him of anything else. 

  
  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Six months into his new life, and five check ins with MI6 later, Dominic was shocked to see Tanner sitting at his usual table in the coffee shop. 

He’d arrived a few minutes early as he usually did for these meetings, if only to get himself a take away cup of coffee from the counter. 

“No tea? That’s not like you.” Tanner had been absent for the entire interrogation prior to his leaving MI6. Or maybe he hadn’t been. For all Dominic knew, Tanner had been observing from a video feed, watching the terrible business being carried out from afar. 

Either way, Dominic had never seen him. 

“My coworkers prefer it to tea,” he told him simply. “I suppose I’ve developed a taste for it.”

“And a new taste in fashion as well?” He wasn’t judging, merely commenting on the change in attire.

Dominic indulged him in his curiosity. “My previous wardrobe wasn’t really compatible with the oil and grease.” 

But he knows Tanner is seeing more than just a change in clothing. Dominic is quieter now. He was always very self contained, but it’s become something else. Closer to apathy. 

He knows his body no longer maintains that stiff, upright posture it once held. He knows the beard on his face hides most of his expressions on top of aging him about ten years. And that the contacts instead of glasses distorts any familiar image the other man may have been expecting.

He knows that the picture anyone would see very clearly implies he is not welcoming of contact or conversation. 

But he is there, nonetheless. Because he has to be. Maybe the people, if one bothered to look over, would see Tanner in his crisp suit and trench coat, sitting across a cafe table from Dominic, and think it was a probation officer meeting with a parolee. 

He almost smiles at how fitting it would be. 

  
Except he hadn’t been an offender. 

  
They go through the usual questions, Tanner asking after his daily routine, any big events that came up in the last month, any contact he should know about, plans for the next month. 

  
No to all. 

  
At one point, Tanner got a text on his phone. Just a quick message that Dominic couldn’t see, but one that had the man relaxing slightly. Which confirmed the question of whether or not they had someone going through his personal belongings at that moment. 

  
Did the man always have such transparent tells? Did they all?

“Have you heard from Bond?” He put his phone away and refocused on Dominic. 

  
“I just said I hadn’t spoken to anyone.” 

  
Which is how he learns that Bond has absconded from his duty to take a prolonged holiday. Another one of those. 

  
Except, he was lying to Tanner. He had spoken to Bond. And seen him. It hadn’t ended well. 

  
If he felt like being honest with the other man, he would have told him that Bond had tracked him down less than a month ago. That he’d asked “Q” to look into a man from his past, and had even provided a very capable laptop to work from. 

  
Dominic had refused at first. Bond had simply put his gun on Dominic’s kitchen counter within his reach, set the laptop on the countertop a couple feet down, and leaned back against the wall since there was no room for a dining table, let alone chairs to go with it. 

  
His voice was colder than Dominic remembered when the agent looked at him. “I don’t particularly care who you were working for, or what information you were after. I’m here because I need a hacker, and preferably one who doesn’t work for MI6. I’m giving you access to this laptop to get me the information I need. I’ll be watching you the entire time, and the moment I suspect you of doing anything else, you’ll be dead.”

  
And to think, he’d thought they were almost friends at one point. But then again, he’d thought the same of Eve too. “James, I…”

  
“Don’t.”

He could have told MI6 immediately, but he didn’t. Even if James thought him a traitor, it didn’t mean he had to expose his business. He could have told Tanner now that Bond was gone. But doing that now would mean admitting to lying before. Best all around that he kept that to himself. 

“Well, if he does reach out,” Tanner said, breaking him from his memories, “get in touch will you?”

He gave a hum of acknowledgment back, waiting until the other man had well and truly gone before getting up himself. He got another coffee for the trip back, he’d need it for the warmth; it’d started to rain again. 

It would be fine, though. Rain was common enough, and Dominic thought it was rather fitting for his headspace lately.

It’s not that England didn’t have it’s share of sunshine. It did, of course it did. But Dominic couldn’t remember the last time he saw it. Nearly a year ago, it would’ve been because he was working for his country to keep them safe and sound in this new era of cyber terrorism. Also, because he was rarely above ground during the daylight hours.

Now, it was because he couldn’t be bothered to notice. The monthly check-ins made him feel a little bit like a rat in a cage. But his co-workers were decent, jovial men. They would be enough to lift nearly anyone’s spirits. Anyone that is, but him.

They recognized pretty early on that he was going through something. Or had just been through something. They didn’t ask, and a couple of them even invited him to drinks at a pub after work.

He went and it’d been fine. And soon enough they just accepted that he was Dominic, a crack mechanic who was great at the job and not so great talking to people. They accommodated his taciturn nature with grace, and he was thankful for it.

If he was sitting in front of the shrinks in Medical at that moment, they would be hard pressed not to label him with depression. He’d looked it up. He knew that a prolonged melancholy like this was diagnosable.

But he got up every day. He went into his work on time, never leaving early. He did his job efficiently. He wasn’t suicidal, not even passively. He just didn’t have the emotional wherewithal to attempt meaningful human connections at the moment.

And really, they’d never been his strong point.

In every relationship he’d ever had, friendship or otherwise, there always came a moment where the other shoe would drop. He knew his past, he faced it rather than hiding from it, but he’d had trust issues long before MI6.

And he was smart enough, and introspective enough to know that perhaps his past experiences informed the way he approached his present. But knowing it was happening didn’t change the fact that it was.

Perhaps if he had opened up to Eve more, shared more of who he was with her, she would’ve recognized he wasn’t the one at fault. If he could go back… No.

Dominic had never seen much point in reliving the past. It’d happened. He was alone. He would carry the scars from his time in Six for the rest of his life, but he didn’t need to look back. So the only thing left was to guard his future. And if staying alone kept him safe, then that was his plan.


	3. Chapter 3

Five years after James had left to ‘retire’ with Madeleine, he came back to London. Maybe he had missed it, maybe it was the hired thugs who’d just tried to kill him. And maybe it was that his chosen companion was starting to remind him more and more of Vesper. That itch under his skin that told him he might want to keep an eye on her phone. See who she was texting. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t care for the woman. He’d just spent the last five years with her, of course he cared. But he recognized his actions from all those years ago as a man looking for any port in a storm. 

Make no mistake about it, in the months following M’s death, James was in the middle of a nasty firestorm. One that he wanted no part in anymore.

It wasn’t like it was the first time he had left MI6 in some naive belief that he could save what was left of himself if he just got away from it all. Only, the people he brought with him, cause he didn’t want to go alone, never really ended up like he’d hoped. 

The killing blow came, of course, when he saw her in the hall of MI6, with a stack of official files in hand. 

She’d worked for Six all along. How was that even possible that Mallory wouldn’t have known. He’d introduced her to Mallory, Tanner, and Eve when they were going after Nine Eyes and Spectre. 

Had they known her already? Was it one more thing that was kept from him? But if that was the case, surely Madeleine could’ve told him. 

  
Deception only made sense when it had a goal. He couldn’t see what motivation her presence at his side for the last five years was in service of. Unless she’d been assigned as his ‘keeper’... the very thought turned his stomach.

  
He went to Moneypenny. Nothing. 

  
Tanner? Nothing again. 

  
Q.

What had Q known? For all that he had betrayed them, James had trusted the younger man to be aware of most anything inside MI6 during his time. 

  
He asked Eve about what happened to Q, anything to distract himself from the fact that his now very _ex_ -girlfriend had been lying to him this whole time. But Eve was tight-lipped about him. 

  
“Is he still alive?”

  
She sighed exasperatedly, letting him know that she had ‘important business’ happening on her desk. “Yes, James. He’s alive. He does his check-ins and goes to work. There’s notes on all of it in the archive, but oh, you don’t have access to that anymore. Do you.” 

  
He pretended to be amused by her sarcasm. But she was right, until he gave Mallory an answer about coming back to work, he wouldn’t have access to anything. 

  
Rather than try and charm anymore information out of her, he turned his thoughts to where the man might be. Surely not that little shack he’d found him in last time… 

  
Except, he was. 

  
He watched him for a full week. The man, Dominic now, looked absolutely nothing like James remembered. There were no more cardigans and checkered pants. They’d been replaced with thick flannels, a heavy workers coat, well-worn jeans, and sturdy boots. He kept his hair short, shorter than before and hidden under a beanie cap whenever he was out. And had an impressive beard covering half of his face. 

  
James would have thought the missing glasses meant they’d just been for show during the man’s time at Six, if he hadn’t seen him put contacts in one morning. 

  
But most of all, he looked run down. He walked with a limp, and seemed to have a lingering cough that he didn’t have any medication for. James knew because he’d checked the cabinets when he’d broken into Q’s house. 

  
He had his work schedule down after the first three days of watching, and knew he wouldn’t get home until the evening. Breaking and entering was never a point of regret for him. He was a spy after all. 

  
The house looked nothing like the old flat he’d had. It was lived in, but very small. He hadn’t remembered taking too much stock of the place the last and only time he’d been there. But Q didn’t seem to be much for material things anymore. 

  
Apart from a couch, a full bookcase, a small entertainment unit that housed a television and a record player, and a piano along the wall, there wasn’t much in the first room. The bedroom held an unmade bed and a clothing dresser. The bathroom door didn’t open all the way thanks to the toilet blocking its path, but there was nothing of note in there anyway. 

  
The fridge held staples only, no leftovers, nothing in excess. The freezer had several microwavable dinners, but nothing that would indicate Q did any regular cooking. There was a sticky note taped to the fridge reminding him that payday was coming up, and that he needed to _“_ _deposit cheque at bank_ _”._

  
Q didn’t have company the full week James watched. Which made the lack of extra plates or mugs make a bit more sense. 

  
If this was a man who’d been working with an enemy of the Crown, he would have thought things would be different. Either he would be dead, vanished, or living better than this. But everything pointed to Q living a quiet, lower-middle class life of solitude.

  
On Friday, James let himself into the house shortly before Q was due back. And waited. 

  
He didn’t have to wait long. Within an hour, he heard the shuffling steps stop at the door, heard the keys in the lock, and settled back for Q to discover him. He was almost disappointed when Q didn’t startle. 

“It’s about a week early before the check in.” Q hadn’t startled, but neither did he come further into the room. Nor did he remove his coat. 

  
James was confused, but did his best not to let it show. 

  
“Unless you’re not here for that.” Q was wary of James, that was obvious. But he stood his ground well in the little entryway. At least until James stood up. 

  
He caught the tiny flinch and the aborted step back to the door. “Q,” he started, hoping to settle the man. 

  
“My name is Dominic. I haven’t been Q for a long time.” 

  
“Dominic,” James agreed. “I need your help with something.” 

  
Q sighed, dropping his head a little and taking off the beanie. He gave his short hair a quick ruffle before answering, “I don’t do that anymore. I haven’t been allowed a computer since everything happened. I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

  
“You did before.” 

  
“You threatened to shoot me if I didn’t.” And there was a little of the annoyance James remembered. That sharp tone that made it clear his patience was quickly dwindling.

  
“I wouldn’t have shot you.”

  
“Yes,” Dominic stared flatly back. “You would have.”

  
James let the silence hang in the air. What could he do? Deny it again? Q was probably right; five years ago, James thought the man had turned against them all. No one had died, and they could never trace his activities to any outside contact, but the circumstantial evidence had seemed like enough at the time. And back then, there was so much going on. James had still been off kilter after M’s death, and Spectre was hanging over their heads before they even really knew what it was. 

  
But James had trusted Q. Thinking back on it, that might have played a part in how hard and fast he’d shut down. James didn’t need to have Madeleine’s degree to know that he had more than his fair share of trust issues. He could admit that he was predisposed to expect betrayal from anyone he trusted. It was just how it was. 

  
Even now. With Madeleine. She was simply the latest in a long line of dishonest relationships. 

  
But Q… He hadn’t even questioned it when Eve told him about Q. Maybe he should have. 

  
“What happened to your leg?”

  
And that got a crease in the placid facial expression out of the younger man. “What do you mean?”

  
“You limp when you walk,” he explained, giving Q’s leg a noticeable glance. 

  
He didn’t need to tell Q that he’d been watching him, he’d said enough for him to figure that out on his own. 

  
Q looked up at him in confusion for a moment before huffing out a defeated laugh and looking away. He still hadn’t moved in from the entryway. 

  
“They damaged my ACL when they were questioning me.” It wasn’t said with any derision, it was just a fact. 

  
James hadn’t known about that. He honestly hadn’t given Q’s betrayal another thought after it happened. Not until a few months later when he’d needed to seek the man out. But even then, he hadn’t looked too closely. He’d made sure he got what he’d come for, and left. No goodbye, no conversation. 

  
“Was that all they did?”

  
“I’m sure you can read it in my file.” He finally came a little further into the room. But only to start a pot of coffee on the counter before turning back to the door and hanging his coat up. 

  
He didn’t look back at the agent in the room. Choosing instead to pull the one empty mug in the place from the drying rack next to the sink. 

  
James knew he wasn’t going to be offered a cup for himself. Q didn’t have one available even if he wanted to. He watched as he spooned out a few lumps of sugar from a canister, and stirred in some creamer before taking a sip and setting the mug back on the counter. 

  
He didn’t turn around. But he did place his hands on the counter and slumped forward a little. 

  
“If you’ve come to kill me, now would be a good time. I can’t imagine why they thought they’d need a double-oh for the job.”

  
It was like ice down his spine, and he suddenly felt so out of place in the tiny house. 

  
“Q, I didn’t…” James shook his head even though the other man wasn’t looking. “I promise I’m not here to kill you.”

  
“My name is Dominic.”

  
He didn’t know how long it would take for _Dominic_ to turn back around. But it didn’t matter. James was gone less than a minute later, silently letting himself out of the front door. He wasn’t welcome, that had been clear. But instead of asking him to leave, Dominic had admitted defeat. 

  
It hadn’t even been a game, for Christ’s sake. Or if it was, it wasn’t one James knew he’d been playing. He let the absurdity of the whole encounter wash over him and frowned as it left him with more questions than answers.


	4. Chapter 4

After some minimal internal debate, James decided to talk to Mallory about a couple things. The new player in town was the first order of business. 

Who was it? They had no clue.

What were they after? Making MI6 suffer. 

What is the plan to address the situation? Again, no clue. 

James wondered if the total lack of information from an Intelligence gathering organization was indicative of a bigger problem than he hoped it was. 

The men who had come for him weren’t from his past. He knew they weren’t, because of course the idiots had a calling card that didn’t match anything on file. But mainly, it was because James wasn’t the only ‘retired’ operative they’d come after. He was just the first to survive. 

He would have been the fourth body to drop in less than two months had he not been on his game. And still, with three dead agents, granted they were former agents, MI6 had nothing. 

That didn’t bode well, and James would certainly give it his undivided attention when he was able, but on to the second order of business. 

Madeleine. 

  
James isn’t happy about the fact that she was an MI6 employee this whole time, but Mallory insisted it wasn’t his hire. Also, he hadn’t been aware of her at all until they showed up. She’d been working with MI6 Psych department since long before Mallory’s time. The facility in Austria had been a retreat for recovering agents. It still was, and her direct supervisor was located there, not in London. 

  
There’d been no reason for Mallory to be aware of her specifically, and much the same as Bond, he wasn’t amused by the deception on her part. 

  
Since her return from Bonds retirement, she’s resumed full-time employment rather than remote, and had requested to return to Austria. Mallory signed off on it last week. 

  
Mallory promises she wasn’t reporting in with his status.

  
And okay, James can buy that from the man. If nothing else Mallory was always brutally honest about things rather than employing smoke and mirrors. Plus, James had often found that standing in front of someone and looking them in the eye while they explained their story helped to sort out the lies. 

  
Mallory mentioned James’ own situation as an agent, “Any status update you’re considering?”

  
James smiled, but diverted the topic. “Speaking of status updates, what happened to Q?”

“Q is downstairs in his department,” Mallory said, sounding like he was wondering first, why James was asking in the first place, and second, like he was having difficulty following the non-sequitur. 

“Not Winston,” James unbuttoned his suit jacket and took the chair in front of the giant desk. “Q. Dominic.”

  
“Do you think he’s involved in this new player?”

  
James gave him a considering look. “When was the last time you checked in on his updates? Personally?”

  
And now he looked a little uncomfortable. Not too bad, but it was there. “Tanner or Eve oversee that.”

  
“Maybe it’s time you should. I watched him for a week. I talked to him.” He let that hang in the air for a moment. “I want to review his file.” 

  
Mallory knew what was in the file. And he knew that before Bond retired, he’d been fond of the other man. And there was that uncomfortable look again. 

  
James cut him off before he could protest. “I know he was interrogated.”

  
He watched the man let out a long sigh before slumping his posture just a bit and pouring himself a drink from his bar. “It was Seamus doing the interrogation,” Mallory told him, not bothering to look back over his shoulder to see Bond’s reaction. He already knew it wouldn’t be good. 

  
And that told James more than he thought he’d get without seeing the documentation. Seamus was good at his job. One of the best they had. He also had a distinct lack of a conscience or any remorse to speak of. 

  
If he’d been the man they had chosen for the job, James was quite certain Q hadn’t been ‘questioned.’ He’d been tortured. 

  
“I want to see the files,” James told him, his tone having gone flinty. “All of them. And while I do that, I want you to come with me and watch Q. Just watch him. I spent a week doing that before I made contact. You need to see what I saw.” 

  
Mallory puts up an expected protest. He can’t be gone for a week. There’s a threat on their doorstep, not to mention the everyday tasks that flood his desk.

But James won in the end. 

  
They camped out across the street from the cafe during Dominic’s check in later that week. It was likely to be brief, they usually were. But they’d had Tanner conduct it with a bug on so they could listen in. 

While they waited, Mallory told James that Tanner and Eve only oversee the check in reports anymore. They don’t usually make an appearance themselves more than a couple times a year. 

  
Tanner himself hasn’t been in about seven months, but he gets to the cafe and orders two coffees while he waits. 

  
When Dominic Porter walks into the cafe, he spots Tanner immediately and foregoes the queue at the counter to make his way over to the table. Tanner pushes the coffee towards him, and waits while Dominic wraps his hands around the to-go cup, warming them from the chill outside. 

  
He hasn’t lost any weight since the last time James saw him, and he supposes Q has managed to even _put on_ some in his absence. Mostly around the chest and shoulder area. Manual labor will do that. 

  
But the weather is wet on top of cold, the kind that seeps inside and sends an icy feeling down to the bones. The coffee serves nicely as something warm to fight that back. Even if it _is_ just for Q’s fingers. 

  
“Dominic, good to see you.” James heard over the radio. But before Tanner can start in on any questions, Q informed the man of Bond’s visit. 

  
Tanner smiled politely and asked what Bond wanted.

  
“He didn’t say.”

  
He nodded back to Dominic, face maintaining a placid, calm affect. “Why didn’t you call in?”

  
Dominic matches his flat expression, not so much calm as it was simply disinterested. “I don’t have a mobile.”

  
“You have a landline,” Tanner points out.

  
“I didn’t think of it.”

He has him agree to call in if Bond comes back for another visit. 

  
James notices that Q doesn’t look at Tanner once during the rest of the five-minute chat, nor does he drink any coffee. 

  
When things seem to be wrapping up, Tanner leans a little into the table and lowers his voice slightly, “Do you need anything? Medication? I know you don’t do so well in the cold anymore.”

  
This time, Dominic looked the other man dead in the eye. “Are we done?” 

  
He doesn’t take the coffee with him when he leaves. And Mallory doesn’t say a word on it until he and James are back in his office. 

  
He’s not convinced entirely that Q didn’t do anything. But he agrees to take another look. He also asks _again_ about Bond’s intentions. “Do you even want to return to active double-oh status? I know I’ve been lax about following up with you on this, but you’ve had time to settle back in now.” 

  
James isn’t sure just yet. 

  
“Then watch Mr. Porter.” He’s half amused, half aggrieved. “Since it seems you’re doing that already. If you believe he might be innocent, I want to know why by the end of the month.” 

  
James gives him a sarcastic looking smirk. “Are you trying to get me out of the way with a surveillance task?”

  
“Not at all. But until you decide to resume the career of your past, you need to be doing something at least somewhat productive to this agency. I’ve chosen this for you. Any problem there?”

  
“Not at all…” James didn’t lose the smirk. “Sir.” 

  
“You know Bond,” Mallory called out to him before he could reach the door. “You may not have appreciated my words during our first meeting, and I might have come across as... a bit harsh. But with all sincerity, this _is_ a young man’s job. You are talented, more than even _I_ realized then. But it might be time to consider taking a step back from field work, serve in a different capacity. It’s been five years, after all. Have you ever considered the Executive route? Or even advisor? There is a good deal of information and expertise stored in your brain. Surely you can apply it in some other way.”

  
James didn’t react outwardly to the comments other than to turn his body fully back to the man as he was listening. “Sir, I can tell you that it has never crossed my mind.” 

  
“Yes,” the overworked and overtired head of MI6 replied. “I thought as much.” 

  
  
  



	5. Chapter 5

James never really got around to monitoring Q for Mallory. It wasn’t due to a change in his underlying intentions though. The very next night after he’d left Mallory’s office, there’d been an attempt on his life.

Any number of points about the attack were odd. First of all, how did they know where he was? And that wasn’t even getting into who they were.

His flat wasn’t listed. Anywhere. It wasn’t a Six issued flat, and he hadn’t rented it in his own name. He’d had a few things delivered, furniture and such, but nothing in the place was tied to ‘James Bond’ at all.

No one knew about it but him.

Well, they _hadn’t_ until he’d been attacked. Then everyone knew about it.

He could’ve taken care of the body disposal by himself, really. But it might be better for the jackals in Medical to get ahold of them first. They might be able to id them at least.

And then the rest of the investigation brigade swept in to dive into the crime scene. James had already packed a few bags of clothing by the time Eve came walking in, navigating her way around the techs with all of their blue gloves and matching jackets.

She had marching orders from Mallory, and Tanner on speed dal if James refused. It’s simple, they’re going dark on any current information about James. 

He’s somewhat less than amused that he is being sidelined when there are clearly people out there trying to kill him. Not MI6, him. But Eve, by way of Mallory, was insistent.

Unfortunately, they know just where to stash him.

They kept his name out of Dominic’s latest report, and his surveillance had been off the books anyway. He can hide there.

His limited amusement for the day started to slide further away. And he could only imagine how happy Q would be to see James on his doorstep after their last meeting.  
  


He’s not. Happy, that is.

James asked if it would be okay when Q opened his door that night, it’s polite that way. But there was very little reaction beyond the tightening of a jaw that James could only just make out behind the beard.

  
It’s horrible intrusive, he knows that. And even if he planned on ‘intruding’ on Q’s life anyway to watch him, that would’ve all been done without Q’s direct knowledge or involvement.

So even though he knows the other man absolutely does not want him in his tiny house, he can tell that Q sees it as no choice. He offers James the couch. There’s an extra pillow and blanket, but that’s it.

Eve doesn’t get invited in, and to spare them all hard feelings, James dismisses her at the door.

For the next two days he lives out of his bags, eating take away. He was able to pack his electronics, but there’s no wireless connectivity, and besides. James hadn’t been able to find a single square inch of the house where he could pick up a signal on his phone.

But he has access to Q’s entertainment center and spends his time reading and exploring Q’s record collection.

Boredom never sat well on him though.  
  


Q came home one evening to see Bond cooking in his kitchen. There’s new plates, cookery, and food on the counter. A glance at the couch produces fresh toiletries and clothes. 

He didn’t ask, but James tells him that Eve was kind enough to pick up his shopping and drop them by. 

If Q is annoyed by his foray into the culinary arts in order to stave off cabin fever, he doesn’t mention it. But he does ask, “Something big is happening, isn’t it?” 

It’s the first actual interest Q had shown since his arrival. 

“Yes.” Simple answer for a simple question. He doesn’t want to unsettle Q with an overload of human interaction when it seems like he’s subsisted on so little of it for a while now. He’s rewarded when there’s a follow up inquiry.

“And you needed to hide from it.” Maybe not an inquiry, more like an observation. But he takes it as an olive branch.

“I need to avoid being seen, being followed, yes.”

“And you thought Eve was the best choice to bring you reinforcements.”

There was something about the tone of his voice that let James know he thought that line of reasoning had been ill-advised. 

In fact, it was the first time in the last few days that James picked up on outright hostility. It was barely muted despite how fleeting it was. But he’d seen it. Q had been careful to keep any reaction of James’ invasion to himself. 

Apart from the initial unhappiness he thought he’d caught. 

  
It didn’t really matter that the emotion wasn’t a pleasant one. He was just happy to be getting _anything_ from the quiet man. 

Instead of answering the accusation, he handed Q a plate of food. They ate standing at the counter, and without continuing the conversation. 

James counted it as a success.

But the minimal social interaction didn’t segue into continued companionship. Q retired for the night after having a quick shower. No television, no reading, no movie. He just went to the other room and presumably went to bed. He hadn’t actually said another word after the food, but James decided to wrap up for the night as well, trying to be considerate of the noise. 

He didn’t fall asleep easily, too caught up in what Q was implying. He doesn’t like it. Q has no reason to trust Eve anymore, he knows that. But did he know something that James didn’t? Was there a legitimate reason why Eve knowing his whereabouts was a bad thing? Surely, if that was the case, he would’ve said something the first night when she dropped him off.

There’s no door to muffle sounds, so James can’t be sure, but he wonders if Q had slept at all. 

The next morning, before leaving for work, Q stops at the door. He’s already bundles up in his heavy coat and ready to walk out. He doesn’t turn back to James on the couch, but he does say, “I hope you make it through this, 007.” And then he’s gone. 

James waits almost two hours, turning those words over and over in his head and trying to settle into the monotony of his day with another book, before realizing the words for what they were. A farewell.

He’s up on his feet immediately after, searching through the rooms. Nothing of Q’s is missing, his clothes are still there. His few possessions are in their place on the dresser when he checks the bedroom. But he’s out of the house regardless, ignoring the safety of staying hidden and rushing to check if Q actually went to work.

He had, surprisingly enough. But about ten minutes before James came into the garage asking after Dominic, the man had conveniently injured himself working on an engine and had been sent off to get it seen to at A&E.

James is absolutely certain that’s not where Q would go. But ten minutes wouldn’t be too impossible of a head start. Especially since his boss had sent another mechanic with him to drive. 

Hoping it wasn’t going to be a waste of his time, James traces the route they would’ve taken and walks into the hospital.

He took a risk, and let out a sigh of relief as it paid off.

He watched from a careful position behind a crowd as Q got up from the plastic waiting room chairs that his coworker had sat them on, carrying his bag with him as he made an excuse that he needed to use the bathroom. 

After waiting three more minutes, counting the people entering and exiting the public restroom, James made his way across the floor.

Q had wrapped his arm himself, apparently that hadn’t been a ruse, and was in the middle of shaving his face. He stopped when he noticed James at the door, but turned back to the task at hand quickly enough. He didn’t look surprised to see him. 

“Did you check to see if you were being followed?”

He’d lived with it for almost a week now, but the dull, emotionless tone from Q was still unnerving. Any burst of expression he’d seen last night was hidden away again. 

“No.”

“We’ll need to go out the back then.”

James nodded, moving closer. He went through the bag, pulling out the stodgy jumper Q had packed to change into and setting it on the sink counter before taking inventory of the rest of the contents.

“I keep that in my locker at work if I ever need to run,” Q told him, nodding to the bag and its contents. There were emergency medical supplies, a new passport, bank cards, a mobile phone, cash, and some extra clothes. 

“Smart,” he smirked. “I’m surprised at the lack of tech though.”

“This isn’t my last stop out of London.” But Q wasn’t looking at him, he was focused on getting the hair off his face without proper shaving cream.

“Transportation?”

And that got a snort in reply. “Point to any car, I can take it in under two minutes.”

James half wanted to congratulate Q on finding humor in something, while the other half was just glad to see a glimpse of the cocky quartermaster re-emerging.

Q nicked himself on the blade, letting out a soft curse. In a move that he would question later, but for some reason didn’t even think about right then, James stepped up and took the razor from Q’s hands.

“Here, let me.” Surprisingly, Q did. Holding himself still for James to maneuver, but not tense like a rabbit in front of a hound.

“This is the shittiest razor I’ve ever used,” James told him after the first pass. 

Q murmured back, keeping his face relaxed, “You get used to it.” 

“Hmm,” he gave back, not committing to it being true or not. “You’re _are_ running then?” 

James could count on one hand how often Q seemed to focus his attention on him in the last week. This was one of those times. “Do you plan on turning me in?”

“No.”

And it was the truth. He didn’t know why, but something said to carry this one out a little more. There was something happening that had caught his interest, even if he didn’t know what just yet. 

He made another swipe with the shitty plastic razor, turning Q’s head to eye its effectiveness. 

  
“You’re not scared of me anymore.”

  
“I was never scared of you.” And Q meant that too. Aside from the spot of humor a moment before, the former hacker had developed a bit more of a spine. 

James lets him wipe away the leftover soap foam with his bloody shirt. He’s going to toss it anyway, so it doesn’t really matter anymore. 

“It was never you, was it?” 

Q looks at him for longer than he had since James invaded his home. He doesn’t know what he was expecting to see on his face, but he must find it. 

“No. It wasn’t.” 

  
“And if I say the safest place for us right now is inside of MI6?”

That sparked another one of those disapproving looks he realized he’d missed. When he spoke though, it was back to the stony flat voice from before. 

“I would rather die than ask them for sanctuary. And you know that it isn’t anyway. If it wasn’t me, it was someone else. Someone who’s still there, and still watching. The safest place for me right now is the farthest from MI6 that I can get.” He shoved the rest of his things back in the bag and continued without looking over, “I understand that you feel the need to protect it, but I don’t. I won’t be party to treason, but I won’t save them either.” 

  
He hoped his face didn’t give anything away, but he wasn’t as practiced in his typical ‘assassin demeanor’ anymore. And he didn’t know if he liked what he was hearing. “You would leave your friends to face an attack alone?”

  
Q took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and pausing for a moment. Just like he had with Tanner, he gave James what amounted to a glare for him. “My friends had me waterboarded, chained to a hook for days, electrocuted, and repeatedly beaten with a blunt instrument, interspersed with the knife work. In that order. And in spite of my very sincere claims of innocence. Do you honestly believe I have a shred of affection left for any of you?”

“Then why would you let me come with you?”

  
“Sometimes a trigger needs to be pulled.”


	6. Chapter 6

They made it out of the hospital without incident. James had assumed Q would say something to the driver who’d brought him in. His coworker. But no. Q looked like Q again, minus the hideously smart cardigan and slacks.

The new pullover was a rust color though, not his flannel and coat from before. Those were in the bin. And the beard was gone. The contacts had been taken out, but he’d kept them in a plastic case in his bag. They’d been replaced by an old, familiar pair of glasses.

The overall look was not recognizable as the man who’d walked in there at first glance. And they were shooting for no more than a glance at best.

Once outside in the car park, instead of lifting any of the hospital staff vehicles, Q led them to the tube and then to the airport.

No one followed, and Q didn’t say a word on their travels. James stayed in step the entire way, letting Q dictate their route.

It was almost like being back on a mission, when he’d had Q in his ear directing him through a maze of a city. But now he didn’t have a calm, soothing voice in his ear. This time he had a mute, but still very calm presence at his side.

At the airport James learned that he didn’t, in fact, need to take a car. He already had a Defender waiting in long term parking. When Q led him over to it and opened the rear door, James could see the entire back end had been converted to a steel plated storage area where Q had another bag like the one he was already carrying, on top of several duffels.

And if James wasn’t mistaken, a locked weapons case. 

“How did MI6 miss this?”

Q spared him a glance before shuffling through the bags. “I already had it before everything happened, spent six month’s salary on it. The Ares model was good even back then.” Something had made the former quartermaster a bit loquacious and James was delighted as he continued his explanation. “I thought about upgrading, but it was more trouble than it was worth. I was able to get away once every few months to check on it, drive it around for a while and get a new parking pass.” 

Though his expression never changed from the cool and calm facade, his posture had improved somewhat. More so even than when they were making their way there.

Q took a few extra minutes to pull out a larger med kit from one of the duffels and set it on the ground next to them. 

“The meds are all current,” he said in reply to James raising a brow when he’d started to line them up on the back of the rover. 

He pulled out a syringe and a vial, and shocked the hell out of his companion when he started undoing his belt before letting the jeans pool around his calves right there in the parking garage. 

James tore his eyes away to double check they were alone, but Q had a sole focus of measuring out a dosage of whatever was in the vial. 

It was when he leaned back against the back floorboard of the SUV that James’ attention was caught on the scars that were littered across the newly exposed skin. 

  
He’d looked at the files, he knew logically that Q would carry the marks of torture. He’d seen pictures of the wounds. But right then he realized that in all the time he’d been watching Q, and even in the week that he’d stayed in the man’s house, he’d never seen the aftereffects.

Not the physical ones at least.

  
Having it on display for him was another story though. He was starting to understand what Q meant when he’d said that he wouldn’t stick his neck out for anyone from MI6. And he felt helpless and bitter at the thought that Q included him in that line up. 

  
“Was that from a knife?” He asked gesturing to a long red groove that started just above the right knee and ran upwards, disappearing under the hem of the pants. 

Q answered without looking up. “Sort of. Hot steel,” he corrected. “It wasn’t a particularly sharp edge, but it cut through the skin just the same. If it wasn’t being done to me, I might’ve been impressed at Seamus’ ability to inflict that much damage without completely destroying the muscle beneath.” 

  
He thought about asking if Q needed help when it was so obvious he intended to give himself an injection. But he held his tongue. Q didn’t ask anyway. 

  
He did let out a stifled groan though, as he depressed the syringe into the side of his knee. 

  
“It won’t heal it. And it’ll still be sore for a while. But it’ll mask the pain long enough for me to run on it if I have to.” 

James didn’t want him running on that leg for anything in the world. 

But if there was one thing about Q, it was that James trusted his planning and preparations. 

“Are we notifying Mallory at all?”

“No,” came the clipped response as Q started to pull up the trousers and zip himself back together. Though that tone might have been due to the pain. “And you should dump your phone once we’re on the streets. I can wipe the security footage, but if someone wanted to track you, you’ve made it easy for them so far.” 

He had, hadn’t he. Somewhat chastened, James remembered that this was a brave new world after all.

Q was supremely unique in his genius. But that didn’t mean there weren’t others out there who could get close. If Q could imagine someone tracking them with James’ phone, then they probably could. But he hadn’t mentioned it the entire week he’d spent in the man’s house. Which seemed odd. So he asked.

  
“Just because you couldn’t see the tech, doesn’t mean I didn’t have any. There’s a signal scrambler inside the walls. It turns on with the closet light switch in the bedroom.” 

  
Clever, clever boy. It wasn’t going to happen, but he had the strongest urge to go back to that small house and tear it apart to discover just how clever Q had been. 

“If you’re coming you might as well do the driving. I need to erase the video logs anyway.” 

  
He didn’t need to be asked twice. 

  
Waiting for Q to finish up, James watched as he resituated the med kit and packed the bags away in some order that seemed to make sense to him. But not before pulling out a shiny Mac from one of them. It still had the protective film on the back. 

“That looks new.” 

That got a nod. “I picked it up right after your first visit last month. Figured I’d be leaving soon.” 

They drive north at first, just to get out of the city.

Way north.

On a long stretch of road where there was nothing but fields on the horizon, James offered a destination.

They’re headed to the tip of Scotland. Orkney Islands, to be precise.

James, _conveniently_ , has a cottage there that’s not on any books. It had been in the family for generations, and while neither his father nor his grandfather had been duplicitous men, they had both kept the small estate off the official “Bond” family records. 

  
It was under the name Richard Starling. One letter off from an alias that James had given himself in the early days of being an Agent. Well before his Double Oh status happened.

Starling was a name his grandfather had picked, and James saw no reason to diverge from that identity. He already had all of Richard Starling’s paperwork for it anyway. 

Dominic had spent a while observing him as he laid out the background. But he’d dumped his phone like he had wanted him to, and the scanning tech he’d installed in the car years ago would have alerted him if there was a tracking device anywhere inside or on it.

They are truly off the grid as they drove away.

Dominic had a flash of a memory of watching on a screen in Q-branch as James drove another person north into Scotland years and years ago. And judging by the way the former agent’s hands tighten on the steering wheel every now and then, he assumes James is remembering as well.

That mission hadn’t worked out well for anyone, truth be told. But this isn’t a mission. This is an escape.

Content in the belief that this time it’ll be different, Dominic settled into his seat and activated a search for a Wi-Fi signal.

It was time to hack MI6.

He’d tell James when they stopped for a rest. No reason to break the man from his thoughts just yet.


	7. Chapter 7

Dominic’s hack of MI6 was mainly to monitor communication about himself. He emerges from his search a couple hours later content with the knowledge that they are not being followed.

Although that’s probably going to change when he misses his check in next month. Or if someone tries to make contact with Bond. Or if his employer files a missing persons with the police.

He didn’t see the need to notify his boss before, but he considers sending a message once they get where they’re going.

It’s more than a full day of driving for them. Thankfully, Dominic’s job required an early start to the morning, so after a couple hours at work, then the hospital, then the airport, they were out of London just after ten in the morning.

Even so, by the time they make it to the Starling cottage it’s well into the wee hours of the next day. James knows where he’s going as he pulls into the long, private drive. In fact, he’s been silent for the entire last leg of the trip, so Dominic chooses to keep his thoughts to himself as he takes in the grounds.

James had called it a cottage. Which was a bit misleading, really.

It might be dark outside, but even in the shadows, Dominic could see that it wasn’t the small structure he’d assumed from the name. And his mind isn’t changed when they finally make it inside. He doesn’t know if it’s still called a cottage when there are five bedrooms on the second floor, two of which have fireplaces to match the ones off the ground floor study and grand room.

It’s still furnished from way back in the day, with sheets covering almost every surface. There’s no electricity though.

James helps Dominic carry in the bags and duffels, directing them to set up in the study with its leather couches being the best option for some sleep. They both carry in the weapons case before the vehicle is stowed out of the way behind the structure.

While he left James to do that, Dominic went in search of bedding and copious amounts of blankets. He eventually finds a linen closet on the second floor and by the time he makes his way back downstairs, arms full of his bounty, James is back in the study fiddling with the fireplace.

It gives them light in the room, but more importantly, a heat source.

That’s the problem with old stone houses with their high ceilings, it’s cold as fuck. And Dominic may have been used to harsh temperatures working in the garage, but he finds himself stiff and shivering in the cottage almost immediately.

“What are you doing?” he asks, watching as James relocates the duffels from the couches to the floor and then starts shifting the heavy seating around.

“The fire will keep us warm, but we need to be closer to it.”

He doesn’t ask Dominic for help, which is fine by him because it means he doesn’t need to unwrap himself from his down comforter cocoon just yet.

James sets out clean linens on the two couches he’d moved and disappears into the rest of the dark house only to return a few minutes later with pillows for both of them.

Dominic hadn’t thought of grabbing the pillows earlier. He was too focused on the treasure of warm blankets. He probably would’ve been fine without them, but he’s happy for them all the same when he passes out soon after the fire really gets going.

He hadn’t been the one driving, James had insisted on doing all of that himself. But it _had_ been a very long day. Gone is his tendency to stay up until three in the morning on the regular. For the last several years, he’d adopted an early bedtime, and their day had taken him well beyond that.

He stays awake just long enough to see James settling down on the opposite couch. He’d gotten used to the other man’s presence being there while he slept for the last week, and it’s maybe a touch of that familiarity that sends him off to sleep all the sooner.

* * *

With the daylight comes a better exploration of the house. After food of course. He’d like to say it was the smell of food that woke him, but that wasn’t the case. He got the feeling it was much later in the day than he was used to getting up.

Just the same, when he gets up from the couch, donning his boots and his blanket-turned-shawl, he wanders out to find James in the kitchen fixing them breakfast on the woodburning stove.

“There’s plenty of firewood around back, but we’ll get the electricity turned on today.”

“Where’d that come from?” Dominic gestures to the food strewn about the counters.

James finishes a plate and sets it on the little kitchen table, indicating it’s for Dominic. “Went into town while you were sleeping. Someone noticed the fireplaces were in use and came to check who was in the house. I wasn’t able to sleep after they left, and we needed the food anyway.”

Huh. Dominic hadn’t been aware of anyone else being there at all.

“Did they call the authorities?”

“No,” he saw a slight smirk tilt one side of James’ lips as he brought his own plate to the table. “Apparently I look strikingly similar to my father. As soon as I said my name everything was fine.”

“Starling,” he clarified.

“Yes.”

It was already midday despite the breakfast theme in the kitchen, and James did end up needing a touch of Dominic’s help with returning power to the estate. But they were able to get it sorted by nightfall.

They still bedded down in the study again, and Dominic figured it wouldn’t be a bad thing to be surrounded by rows and rows of books, old leather furniture, and in a slightly more cozy room than the rest of the house.

But James insisted that by the next day, the rest of the rooms would be heated enough for full time occupancy.

He did love the study, but there was a bedroom upstairs overlooking the back garden that he could see himself in.

“Are we staying here then?” He asked James the next day while the two were upstairs uncovering the bedrooms for use. He wasn’t against it necessarily and had been able to monitor the comms enough to know that they still weren’t being followed (he’d sent an email to his boss at the garage).

“We can,” James offered. “I wasn’t lying when I said this place wasn’t tied to the Bond name. No one knows about this except you and me. I do need to go into town tomorrow, though. Speak to the council and let them know I’ve taken up residency. Why, did you want to leave?”

He shook his head slowly, thinking about his options. “No, here is fine.”

“Good. Then you might want to come into town with me tomorrow, see where everything is.”

He nodded along with the thought. But there was something digging around in his head that he needed to get out. “Why are you helping me?”

James looked up from sorting out the unused fireplace in the room, slightly taken aback by the question. He recovered quickly, but not fast enough that Dominic missed the slight grimace.

“Q…” he sighed and sat down finally. “I should’ve listened. You tried to talk to me before. And I shut you down. It was too late by then, I couldn’t have stopped what had already happened. But I need you to know, I wasn’t involved in that decision. I didn’t even know it was happening.”

Dominic didn’t say anything.

“I didn’t question it when they told me that you were behind the sabotage. And I was so angry at you. Angry that it had been you. I didn’t question it,” he repeated, shaking his head.

“You trusted them,” Dominic offers.

“Yeah.”

“I did too.”

The fire provided a distracting enough focal point where he didn’t need to look at James when the man kept talking.

“But I should have looked into it myself. It was lazy of me, and because of that, you spent the last how many years alone.”

That got a mean smirk from Dominic. “I would probably have done that even if you had. I was angry too. It wasn’t your fault that I had to change my life.”

“Maybe not,” James conceded. “But maybe you wouldn’t have had to do it alone.”

This time, Dominic laughed. “James, that’s a nice thought, but it’s not what would’ve happened. Back then, you wanted me to track down someone behind Six’s back. And you had that look about you… like you were some kind of avenging angel. Don’t pretend you would’ve had the time for my situation even if you _were_ inclined. Your dance card was already full.”

“I can be better,” he said softly, after a long moment had passed between them.

Dominic pressed his lips together in consideration. “You can be you. I wouldn’t ask you to be anything else. You’re an agent, one of the best. It’s in your blood by now.”

“Did I ever tell you about the Montenegro mission?”

“Did you ever willingly tell me about any mission?” Dominic shot back.

James smiled at the point. “Well, suffice it to say, there was a time when I saw a different life for myself. Away from London and Her Majesty’s service.”

“You just spent the last five years living that life, didn’t you?”

“I thought so. And by the way, we’re picking up Scotch tomorrow if we’re going to take anymore walks down memory lane…”

“You brought it up.”

James gave him another honest smile and shook his head. “That I did. But it was something of a lie. Not the intention, that was sincere. On my part at least.”

He tilted his head in confusion at the vagueness and James clarified. “I took someone with me. I wanted to be done with everything. And nothing was the same after M… well, after that. But I found someone, well who I thought was someone who understood me.”

“What happened?”

He would call the look he got back slightly guarded. And he would know, he’d perfected it. But it wasn’t James being defensive, just that whatever he was thinking… he didn’t want to share.

And that was confirmed when he offered only, “It didn’t work out.”

It wasn't said in anger, but Dominic knew that it was as far as James was willing to give just then.

They got Dominic’s new room, the one with the garden view, settled before clearing out the one across the hall for James. True enough, the heating really had settled into the upper floor rooms nicely, but he figured he’d still be lighting a fire to sleep to for a while yet.

* * *

Q has nightmares. Of course he does, James should’ve anticipated that. But he hadn’t had any while he’d been staying in Q’s house back in London, so the first one took him a bit by surprise.

They wake James on more than one occasion, but he suffers through. Q didn’t react well the first time he’d rushed into the room to try and rouse him.

On week three in the new house, Q has a nightmare that goes on longer than the previous ones. And it’s worse if the volume of screaming is anything to judge by. James thinks it is. He climbs into the bed to hold onto Q’s flailing arms, using his voice to wake him. 

He calls Q Dominic. That does the trick.

Q grabbed onto James’ arm when he started to move away. Keeping him pressed to his side with a surprisingly strong death grip. 

Around the three minute mark where Q is sitting there, shaking, but not letting his fingers release, James realized Q’s gaze was focused on the point where his hand is clutching James’ own arm. His eyes were wide, but he was blinking more than someone who’s comfortably awake. 

He doesn’t interrupt when Q starts to talk. Not even when he starts to share his memories of the torture. He’s never figured out why they left his hands alone.

“They turned the entire rest of my body into a walking bruise… when I could walk… but they never touched my hands.” 

James doesn’t say a word. 

But he does stay. Q doesn’t kick him out, doesn’t protest the closeness. And he holds Q until he falls asleep again. Not that there’s much point in leaving the bed anyway, the sun will be up in a few hours. And aside from their first few days in the cottage, Q never sleeps much longer past early morning. Neither does James. 

When Q wakes up, James gives him a truth for a truth. 

The story of Madeline. How that came to be at all. How they left together. And how every piece of that had been a lie. 

She always wanted to sleep in. James couldn’t stand it. 

There were so many little things that he should have noticed. He’d go out in the morning to get breakfast and when he got back, sometimes she’d be typing away on her laptop. But she never shared what she was working on. Phone calls that she would take out of the room if they were together. The psych conferences she went to that she never invited him along for. 

He’d been played before, he should’ve seen it coming. 

“Always the romantic, Bond,” Q murmured from his pillow. 

He gave the relaxed man a sound of confusion to go with his furrowed brows. 

“Horrible, _horrible_ things happen to you. Constantly.” Q turned away from him and settled flat on the bed, looking up at the ceiling in thought. “You dedicate your life to service to your country, they turn you into a killer. You’re constantly looking for and _falling for_ this idyllic purpose.”

James snorts at that. “I don’t know that my service was _idyllic_.”

Q shook his head a bit. Or he could’ve just been getting more comfortable on the pillow. Either way he responded. “Your motivation is though. Whether it’s a person or a mission, it’s like a compulsion for you. And it seems like there’s betrayal waiting for you behind every door. But you keep opening the doors. Every time. All those doors, all those rooms. And every time, you lose a little more of yourself in them. But if there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that you’re always going to open that door. You haven’t lost hope that one day, hiding behind one of those doors will be your reward.”

“You don’t believe in opening doors?”

“No, I do,” he muses before correcting himself. “Or I did. I got a good look behind a pretty big door. The problem was, if we’re sticking to this metaphor, the problem was that by the time I opened the door, the whole house was on fire. It took me down with it.” 

“Q, what happened to you… look at me please… what happened was unforgivable. But you’re not dead. You spent the last five years going through the motions, looking the part, playing dead. But you had an escape plan you maintained that whole time. Dead people don’t do that.”

“Operating systems run code in the background all the time. Doesn’t mean the user sees it.” 

“You’re not a computer, Q. You’re human. And humans feel things.” 

“Like you do? How did it feel when M ordered you shot off a moving train?”

James sucked in a deep breath at the dig. But he kept his eyes locked on Q now that he had them. 

For his part, Q seemed to recognize that it was a step to far. He didn’t apologize, but there was remorse in his tone. “Maybe it’s petulant. Maybe it’s ridiculous. But if I don’t shut it away, just lock up everything that was done to me… I don’t know what would happen if I focused on it.” 

“Locking it away doesn’t seem like it’s doing you any favors.” 

“Silva was betrayed, tortured because Six allowed it. Look what happened. The amount of anger, of _hatred_ I have in me… because of them. I’ll never really walk right again, they did that. If I actually tried to process that, I have no idea where it would take me. 

James didn’t want to interrupt. But he was a tactile person. Sometimes. And now was one of those times. He wanted to reach out, bring them closer. But he didn’t want to halt Q’s sharing. And that was ultimately more important.

“I didn’t plan past the escape. I didn’t plan a destination. If I did, if I had thought about that at all… I _understand_ how Silva happened.” 

“Q…”

“I suffered through it, the check ins for the last five years. The restrictions they placed on me. It was penance. If I hadn’t let him into the system… That was on me. And people died because I couldn’t be arsed to pay attention to the details. But I’m done now. I’ve left London, and I have no intention of returning. Nor do I have any intention of going after MI6. But that deal only lasts as long as I’m left alone. 

James didn’t say it, not then, and not at all really. Q didn’t want anything to do with Six again. But he knew that eventually… eventually he would have to go back. If only to close out his relationship. End his employment.

James is a romantic. Q was right about that.

He might still be reeling from the betrayal of Madeleine, but he’s not so unaware of his own mind that he can’t tell there’s a deepening fixation on the former quartermaster brewing in his head.

He wouldn’t go so far as to say that he’s fallen for Q, but he doesn’t think he’s far off. It was always comfortable between them. From the first day in the gallery if he was being honest. He had a counterpart from day one, but also a companion in his ear on missions.

And that was the main reason he hated him as much as he did at the end, but couldn’t leave without seeing him one more time. And then Spectre, and then Madeleine… But in the end, it was always Q. He never felt as sure of himself as he did around Q. 

Over the next week or so of settling into life on the island, James took to calling him Dom. He hadn’t corrected James on his name since their arrival, but he saw the benefit of Q being a different person than he’d been in his tenure at Six. Dominic seemed to be, at least in James’ head, tied to a black hole of depression he’d first come upon after he’d returned to London.

But Dom was a new man entirely. Still quiet, still reserved for the most part. But with little pockets of happiness and mirth here and there, and more than willing to respond to conversation. Or even engage James in conversation with no prompting whatsoever.

It was Dom that James was becoming more and more attached to by the day.

They go out to the market together at least three times a week. It’s close enough to walk, and James is content going at Dom’s slow pace. He puts him through stretches before they leave the house, and helps massage the weariness in the muscles when they return. 

One day, before their normal stroll, he presents Dom with a cane. It earns him a rueful chuckle, but the cane is put to use just the same.

They eat meals together. Dom sets the menu and James cooks.

They sleep better together than apart. It’s not a spoken decision, but after the third severe nightmare, James moves himself in. Dom doesn’t object.

They fall into a quiet domesticity easily.

James usually reads while Dom is on his laptop in the evenings, still monitoring the comms for any hint that Six is following either of them. 

They aren’t. But he does see that a plan to search for them was dismissed by M directly. It came almost immediately after James convinced him to send an encrypted and anonymous message to Mallory’s phone, indicating that they were both alive, they hadn’t been taken, and a polite request that he call off the dogs. 

He sees the 007 moniker was given out to someone new. James already knows.

A month and a half into a new life, Dom turns his laptop to James one night.

“What am I looking at?”

Dom hesitates before answering. “I found him.”

He’d been breaking into Six for so long, for them, that James doesn’t balk at the idea. But he hadn’t been aware that Dom was digging into their files.

He’s found the mole. And it doesn’t take more than a quick look up to the other man to see that he can read what’s on James’ face as clear as if he was in his head.

He knows that _Dom knows…_ No matter how peaceful life in the cottage has been, James will leave soon. 


	8. Chapter 8

_Dominic followed M as she led him down into the underground holdings of Vauxhall. He may not know the route they were taking, but he knew **why** she was taking him there. He was being promoted to a new post, Quartermaster. At first, the offer (more like an order) was baffling to him, he didn’t even work in Q-branch proper. He was in an off shoot dealing with malware and comms monitoring. _

_But they’d just been bombed, and the Major is dead. Apparently, he’d been talking to M about Dominic and how his tech skills surpassed anyone he had working directly underneath him. Which was odd to Dominic. Sure, he’d met the man, but it’d been barely more than a ‘hi, my name is…’ type of meeting. He hadn’t known that the Major had even remembered who he was. Let alone sing his praises to the director herself._

_So. On his way he was. To be the new Major. He felt supremely unprepared, but the Major had been right – he was the best._

_Glass walls and automatic doors were a nice juxtaposition against the underground bunker he was still trying to get used to. He appreciated the modern touch._

_And then she showed him the central terminal and the giant monitors on the walls._

_Honestly? He’d been sold when he considered the possibility for tinkering in R &D. But even if he hadn’t, the state of the art command center would have done the job. _

_There was a somber mood around the place, and of course there was, they’d just lost their branch head. But M introduced him to Raquel, and she’s friendly enough. She’s to be his right-hand man, bring him up to speed on everything._

_Had he been less overwhelmed… Had he not had stars in his eyes at the possibilities… had he possessed the slightest bit more humility, maybe he would’ve seen the absolute and utter contempt from one of the techs in the back of the room._

_Winston Hughes was a decent tech. Nothing that would’ve impressed the Director of MI6, but not a bad coder at the end of the day. He was useful in a group effort, but was better suited to an executive assistant role rather than an executive himself._

_He’d been with the Major in Q-branch for seven years, and had worked his way up from the ‘mailroom’ as it were._

_But he wasn’t who M chose to fill the position. Dominic was._

_Had Dominic looked just a little bit closer…_

* * *

“How in the world is the new Q of MI6 the mole…”

James didn’t really give Dom more to work with than that, so he tried to figure out how far back he should start to get the man up to a current understanding.

“Well, he’s been with the agency for a long time. He worked under Major Boothroyd, and always had a favorable psych eval. I imagine he’s earned a respectable amount of trust to where he wouldn’t be an assumed traitor,” he offered. But stopped when James gave him a deadpan look.

“I’m not saying it’s not him, I’m just asking how he hasn’t slipped up yet.”

“Ah.” Dom didn’t really have an answer for that. But he did have evidence from the time he was being tortured.

It wasn’t even on MI6 servers. Except, it sort of was. Technically.

Six had the software capabilities for _years_ to intercept and monitor any mobile transmissions within a ten-mile radius of the building.

The only problem was that there was _so much data_ that got intercepted, that they’d reverted to using keyword searches to reduce the workload on the techs assigned to rifle through it. Not to mention that the sheer volume of information collected meant that it was all stored an off-site location using it’s own bank of servers. It could be accessed remotely, but the ‘hard-copy,’ so to speak, was miles and miles away from MI6 itself.

Most of Six’s employees weren’t aware of it. _James_ wasn’t even aware of it.

Boothroyd had known. But the clearance level was so high, the rest of his branch staff outside of Raquel weren’t made aware.

Which meant that in his time as a tech, Winston hadn’t known.

And what Winston hadn’t factored in, what no one had factored in… was that Dominic knew _all_ about it.

Before being promoted to Q, it had been his job to know about it. Because it had been his job to review it.

And so… The text messages Winston had send to his ‘handler,’ and the transcripts of the calls he’d placed to that same number were recorded and stored. Just waiting for someone to find it.

The phone number itself had been a supposed ‘burner’ phone. But really, if the man was too stupid to know that using his personal credit card to buy minutes for that phone would link him to the thing… Dom feared for the safety of the agency now that Winston was running Q-branch.

“Send it to Mallory,” James told him after reading through the phone calls.

Dom hesitated.

When he didn’t move to do just that, James looked up. “You are going to send this to Mallory, right?”

Dom still hesitated.

“Look, I know you said you wouldn’t help them. And I get that, I do,” he insisted, reaching out to take hold of Dom’s hand. “But this isn’t just about you and me, and what happened before. There’s a traitor in MI6, and they need to know about it. I can call in myself, but I know they’re going to want to see the evidence.”

Dom held his gaze, but didn’t return the gentle squeeze James gave his fingers. “They thought I was a traitor, too.”

“Dom,” James sighed. “Dominic, I know that. And I know it might feel like it’s the same thing, but it’s not. This is evidence that _you_ found. _You._ Not some random tech somewhere. Do you think you got it wrong?”

“No, I know it’s right.”

He nodded at the firm tone. “Okay then… send it to Mallory.”

Dom held still for another few beats before huffing out a breath and set his fingers to the keys. A couple rapid fire movements later, “It’s done.”

James watched him close the laptop and slip further under the blankets after setting it back on the nightstand. He turned on his side, facing away, and didn’t make another sound.

And James knew what the cold shoulder was. He knew he was getting it right then.

He set his own book down, flicked off the lamp, and curled closer. “Thank you,” he breathed onto the back of Dom’s shoulder, wrapping an arm around the man’s waist.

He didn’t get a reply, but he didn’t get pushed away either. He took the win.

Things got a little tense for the next week as Dom waited for James to say he’s leaving. He assumed that once James knew about a threat inside of Six, he’d be off to help them take care of it. But it doesn’t happen.   
  


Instead, they go on walks around the beaches together, bundled up against the chill. It’s getting slightly warmer, but not to the point where he’s comfortable going without a coat and scarf.

When one of their walks takes them into the town, as it often does, James sees a litter of Anatolian Shepherd puppies at one of the farms they pass.

It’s the first real, uncontrollable smile he’s seen on Dom’s face when he’s playing with the rambunctious pups.

The owner comes out to talk to them, and apparently knows who they are. The whole town does, they learn.

Kind of hard not to know about the return of Lord Starling’s son _(since when is James a Lord’s son…)_ and his kind, but soft-spoken partner who walks with a limp. There’s been gossip in town, because of course there is, that Starling’s partner, Dom, walks with a cane because he was injured in ‘the war.’

Apparently, the whole town believes him to be a military war hero. Huh.

But back to Frederick, the owner of the farm and puppies. He asked if they were interested, and that the dogs would be great if James intends to reestablish the manor _(he knew it wasn’t a cottage)_ as a working ranch.

Dom had gone back to playing with the puppies, but he did hear James tell the man that he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go that way, and that they were just enjoying themselves, and the puppies, for now.

He left that night, shortly after supper, for something or another he’d forgotten to pick up in town. He wasn’t clear on what, and Dom knew they hadn’t forgotten anything from their market list.

James took the car.

A little over an hour later, he came home with the puppy Dom had showered affection over. 

“What.” Was all he could get out as James set the little thing on the ground just inside the front door. She made her way over to Dom quickly, happy tail wagging and causing her entire back end to wiggle non-stop.

“What.” He said again.

James smiled, too caught up in the matching smile taking over Dom’s face. “I went back to that farm, told Frederick we decided we wanted her after all. He said she’s going to be one of the bigger ones, and that you might not need such a big beast running around. What with your leg and all. But you seemed taken with her in particular, so…”

He hid his smile in the puppy’s scruff after picking her up. “No, she’s perfect.”

He wasted no time at all bringing her to bed with them. It was nice, having her snuffle her way into the space between them. James insisted that until she’d had a good bath, Dom was _not_ to let her under the covers.

He rolled his eyes at the ‘firm’ tone and reached down to the foot of the bed to drag the extra blanket up to cover her.

James snorted and conceded to the compromise. Dom fell asleep lighter and easier than he had that whole week.

When he woke up to a dark room hours later after hearing _something_ , he tensed for about half a second before he realized it was just James hushing the puppy as he tried to sneak her outside to the garden for a potty visit. Good to keep the puddles outside.

Housetraining. That’ll be a fun way to take up his time.

He never did go back to sleep, and James must have known, because he wasn’t exactly being quiet in the kitchen when he came back inside. So even though the hour was still earlier than normal, Dom threw on a heavy pullover and some slippers and made his way down for coffee.

James had stocked the cabinets with both tea and coffee, and Dom remembered noticing a tin of leaves on his counter back in the tiny, one bedroom house Bond had invaded.

But he’d been fine in the switch to coffee, he preferred it now.

That’s not to say that there weren’t some evenings where he didn’t enjoy sitting in the study with a fire, book, blanket, and a tea. He’d done that three times so far since they got there.

It wasn’t a big deal.

But now, on that morning, James had made them both coffee.

“I can go into town today, get a lead for her. Some food, pet supplies,” James offered.

Dom sipped his coffee, happily waiting for food as James sorted that out for them. “I don’t mind coming. Unless you would prefer to go alone.”

“No, no. That’s fine. We should probably take the Rover though. Better than having us chasing after the dog.”

“She’s coming?”

James gave him an odd look. “Well, yes… She’s a puppy, Dom. She’ll eat the couch if we leave her here alone. That, or piss everywhere and I don’t want her learning bad habits.”

“Lola won’t eat the couch,” he said, his tone very clear in it’s admonishment of the very thought.

“Lola?” James laughed. “Is she a showgirl?”

Dom held his amusement. Barely. It wouldn’t do to let James see it.

Owning a puppy with James. This was going to be an experience. He wondered idly what the man’s calm composure would look like if the puppy happened to eat one of his ridiculously expensive loafers. Or maybe a one of the suits… He’d always been so proud of his suits.

Though James didn’t have any of his ‘fancy’ clothes with them at the moment, Dom was sure they would make an appearance somehow sooner or later.

It would be a shame if Lola destroyed them.

He actually did laugh a little at that, though he didn’t share the reason for his vindictive humor with James.

When they drove into town a few hours later, Dom took his time observing the farms on the way.

The land they’re on doesn’t have any livestock on it, but James mentioned it once had sheep after he asked. Frederick had seemed to imply that there had been a ranching operation at one point, and he was intrigued.

They discussed it for a bit, going over James’ memories of things from when he was a boy. But there’d always been a groundskeeper for that. He’d never really been involved in it directly.

It was a nice thought, but he didn’t have the first idea about sheep or ranching.

Dom snuck off to dive into research on keeping sheep once they made it back home.

He didn’t set out to hide it from James. It just worked out where James took Lola on a walk of the fields to get some energy out, and Dom had decided another afternoon in the study was in his cards instead.

But first, he put together the basket and blanket they had picked up for Lola, James didn’t want her too comfortable sleeping on the bed. And stored the food and supplies where they needed to go. Though, he did leave the shampoo and a towel on the back steps for James when he and Lola came back from frolicking in the pastures.

He kept his research to himself, and he knew James wasn’t going to pry. But he figured he could tell him what he thought about it later.

They got into a routine, where James and Lola walk or run in the fields before supper. Sometimes Dom joins them, but mostly he’s happy to stay in and continue looking into ranching. Along with his normal monitoring activities.

And then… Two weeks after Lola spent her first night with them… James said he needed to go back.

Dom already knew it was coming. He’d relaxed some when it hadn’t happened immediately, but he knew. It was only ever a matter of time.

James had never left MI6 to their own devices before; it wasn’t in him to do it now.

Mallory had sent an encrypted message saying they had taken Winston into custody, but it had only been the tip of the iceberg.

The men who’d come after James in his retirement were part of it.

The men who’d come after James in London were also part of it.

Even if it wasn’t about helping MI6, it seemed to have something to do with James specifically. And that was more than enough to have him skipping off, back to London.

They spent the night together after James set Lola up in her basket next to the couch. Both men were content to hold onto each other as the hours passed. Neither really slept for more than minutes at a time.

And when the sky outside was just turning into a lighter shade of _dark_ , James left. He roused Dom from his doze just enough to say goodbye. He gave him a kiss on the forehead, and then, after watching him for a few more moments, he gave him a real kiss.

And Dom couldn't help but respond.

He knows it’s not going to get anywhere. James is already dressed to go. But it takes his breath away just the same.

And for the first time in over five years, he feels tears wetting his lashes.

He doesn’t watch James leave.

.

.

.

.

.

.

He would like to say that he stayed in bed all day. If only because that was what he wanted to do.

But a happy, healthy puppy waits for no man.

It was Lola that got him through the next week. And then the next. And before he knew it, a month had gone by.

He knows James is safe. But only because there’s no record of anything else in the MI6 mainframe. And he thinks Mallory would be decent enough to let him know if that wasn’t the case.

But two months after James left, Kyle, a young lad of no more than 16 who works as a delivery boy for the postal service brings him a package he says Mr. Sterling mailed up from London.

It must have just come in, seeing as Dom had been making regular walks into town with Lola for the last two months. And he knew Kyle, much the same as he knew most people in their little island community.

After James left, away on business he’d say when someone would ask, the townspeople became very ‘active’ in inviting Dom to their get togethers. He’d been charmed at the time, and happily accepted as long as he could bring Lola.

They _all_ loved Lola.

Dom upended the package once he saw Kyle on his way, and several papers fell out. In the mess of it all, he found the deed to the land and house laying there on his table.

Bond signed everything over to him.

Dominic Starling.

The deed came with his new identification papers. The papers list him as the husband of one Richard Starling.

He wonders if he should be pissed that James hadn’t even proposed first. But a wry grin came over his face as he realized that it was such a... _Bond_ thing to do. 

* * *

_Epilogue_

* * *

  
  


Dom thought he’d seen the end of James. A month went by after the delivery of the papers… and no one came.

Three more months went by, and still nothing.

It was good that James still hadn’t been declared dead. But he’d made no promise to come back either.

Around the ten-month mark, Dom was settled in the reality that he may be alone again, but at least he was safe and secure in his well-heated cottage/manor. And no one was monitoring his movements every day. He doesn’t have mandatory monthly check ins.

It’s certainly a step up from where he was a year ago.

He settles into the quiet life of a rancher, though the land is still absent livestock.

By the time the third month of solitude was out, he’d looked into what it would take to raise sheep.

He has plenty of money that he’d squirreled away since before his time at MI6, family money that had been left to him when his mother passed during his Uni years.

And it’s not like there was cause to spend anything in the five plus years between Six and the present day.

He has plenty of time to get ready for livestock. There’s an auction coming up in October, and it was only June. 

But then... months after the first package was delivered, Kyle showed up at the front door again. With another package.

Lola, who’d gone through a dramatic growth spurt, was super excited. And while that could spell trouble as Dom went to answer the door, she’s eerily intelligent enough to know not to jostle him when he’s standing. 

It’s the first sign of James since he left. The first contact he’d made.

This package isn’t like the first though. There are no formal documents, and only a small wrapped box when he opens the envelope.

He carefully removed the wrapping.

Keys.

A boat slip at the harbor.

One folded up piece of paper that lists the sale from down south for a small pleasure yacht in Richard’s name. James’ name. 

He fastens the lead to Lola and takes her out for a walk.

The harbor is on the way to the market anyway. It won’t hurt anything to stop by and check it out.

James is on the boat.

James is on the boat and he can’t breath for a second. 

Lola is, once again, super happy. She jumps up on James as soon as he comes down onto the dock, and Dom wonders at her ability to know which of her masters it’s okay to do that with. Especially since she hasn’t seen him in months. He says as much to the other man. 

“Is that right, you good girl. You’ve been good for Dom while I’ve been away? And here’s me with no treats for you.”

Dom hands him some from his pocket and James spends the next few minutes feeding her one after another. 

“You spoil her.” 

“She’s a good beast of a dog. She took care of you for me.” 

And then, because he can’t let this continue without addressing the _months_ of radio silence, Dom says, “I didn’t know if you were coming back.” 

And James is contrite. He can see that well enough. And then, “I had some loose ends to tie up.” 

It’s not enough.

“You took the mission.” 

“Hmm. My last one,” he nods. When he sees that Dom is expecting more he adds, “And I was shot.”

He must see the small step Dom takes forward at that because he quickly smooths it over, “Nothing major, but it was enough to have me in a safehouse with medical staff keeping me under lock and key for a while.”

It’s somewhat mollifying.

“But I talked to Mallory afterwards. I’ve reached mandatory retirement age for field work, and my replacement seems to be doing well, if a bit in need of an attitude adjustment.” 

Dom chuckled under his breath at that. “Well _that_ doesn’t remind me of anyone at all. Are you going back to London then? Or is this boat meant to be for a farther destination?” 

James smiled. “I thought I’d spend the next few hours with you, sailing the islands. And then I thought we could go home, cook a decent meal, and you could tell me all about these sheep herding plans Lizzy was telling me about.” 

Lizzy is a bright 22 year old girl who works in the local grocery shop. She’s also the biggest gossip this side of the island. 

“How long have you been back?” He asked accusatorily. 

“Just this morning.” James moved to carefully place Lola on the deck of the boat. “Lizzy also happened to mention the Hamford’s have a litter of wolfhounds they’re weaning.” 

“James, we’re not getting a wolfhound,” Dom insisted with a long-suffering sigh as he accepted a hand up. “Honestly, one giant dog is enough, isn’t it?” 

James laughed and pulled Dom in for a kiss followed by a tight embrace that lasted long enough for any remaining tension to disappear. “I missed you,” he said softly, and then set about getting them on their way to the open waters. 

They had a sunset to chase. 

  
  


  
  



End file.
